The sphere took flight in the bright sky, a sunset was setting, and the wind began to blow stronger from the southwest. Riuluk took out his tool again and checked the wind. He then looked at the compass and adjusted some handles on the steam machine, which, after that, changed its pumping sound.

  Riuluk's face was expressionless yet determined. He checked the compass, then he sat on his stool and brought the table from one side of the creaky to the other. He put his arms on it and, again, his face on his arms, with a different melancholy. Under the creaky, the forest of Waldius, on its right, the big river of Outhkaer, in front of it, the vast green lands of Druen.

  The sun was close to coming to an end, so Riuluk opened the deposit under the Creaky and took the big chunk of smoked ham and some blankets. He almost ate it all, accompanied by all his reserves of Duerth Maonkrum, the most delicious pear liquor of the dwarves of the air.

  He got so drunk that night, he didn't even put away the table to sleep, nor did he take the pillow he loved to hug while sleeping. During the night, the door of the sphere opened, and Riuluk didn't even notice the wind coming from the right to the left side. He slept so deeply that not even goblins shooting at him would have awakened him.

  “Riuluk, take the stone..take the stone..” he dreamed.

  “This is a very important stone...”

  “Very important...”

  “Don't lose it! Or your task will be even more difficult...”

  “It has the power..the power..”

  “Find him..find him..find him!”

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Riulik awoke.

  “Oh my good Lord Kloud! Doesn't matter how much I drink, the words of the old Fraethorn cannot be forgotten so easily.”

  “Cla clank, Cla clank..”

  With his eyes still asleep and the look of an average dwarfish drunker, Riuluk looked to his left. His eyes opened twice as wide as they could...

  “Oh, good Lord! I slept like this? I could have fallen down! Thank god I had the table, otherwise, drunk like I was, I could have fallen down easily!”

  Then he looked at the right side of the Creaky. The anchor fell down during the night from the open door!

  “Oh noo..noooo,” said Riuluk with such a disgusted face.

  “Clank!” The whole sphere jumped...

  Riuluk didn't understand what was happening:

  “An earthquake? What earthquake? We are in the sky, you idiot!”

  He stood up from the stool, almost flashing away his table with his belly, and he looked down...

  “Goblins!” he shouted.

  “Goblins..goblins, goblins!!! What to do, what to do?”

  There were 3 goblins on the ground pulling the sphere from its rope. Another one was more distant and was trying to shoot arrows at the sphere, but his bow was too weak to reach that high. He was furiously asking his friends to lower it down so he could hit it!

  “Bla blaa, uruakte naaa!” or something like that.

  “Rashiki na tu haaaa!” almost.

  Riuluk was in a panic. He started throwing down the empty bottles, the stool, the cutlery...he found another bottle of Maonkrum in the deposit. He was just about to throw it away...then he mumbled, opened it, drank it, and then threw the empty bottle as well.

  That one finally hit one of the 3 goblins pulling!

  It made an empty sound, like a breath into the bottle.

  “Ahahahah..there you go, you little green rake!”

  “Wata mata chuuu!” said something the throwing arrow goblin.

  The goblin started to get pissed off by the fact that he couldn't reach the sphere; his companions, as well, didn't have enough strength to pull it down.

  “Ahaaaa, what are you going to try now?” laughed Riuluk.

  The throwing arrow goblin tried different positions to throw the arrows. He started to get really angry about it; if he could change the colour of his face now, it would be red as a roof! The goblin started to argue, probably with his bow, then he pulled the bow with his own feet, slanc! The arrow went high up in the sky. Riuluk, for a moment, got scared and shivered cold, but the arrow went even higher than the sphere itself.

  “Wahaaaaa..this is what you got?” laughed Riuluk.

  “You'd better let me go!”

  Right in that moment, the arrow, falling down from the sky, hit the balloon..

  “Psssssssssss..”

  The balloon started to fall. Riuluk was in total panic...” What to do? What to do?”, he asked himself, going around the creaky looking down.

  Then he saw the wings.

  “Oh nooo..but better than dead.”

  He took those dusty wings, tried to blow away a bit of it, even if it was useless; he did it by instinct. He put the wings on the two faces of the creaky, took the tool, hid behind one of them, and sealed them as fast as he could at the creaky. He then pushed a button on the steam machine, releasing all the steam. The sphere was already half. The goblins started to throw more arrows at him. He lay down in the Creaky, covering himself with the blankets, like a kid trying to hide from his mother. The sphere reached from 0 knots to 42 in 6 seconds; the 2 goblins at the anchor started to move as the sphere was carried on the ground...

  “Waluka muk teeee!” something from the chief goblin.

  The sphere went faster and faster as it lowered. Riuluk was not a Duonor; he had never used a sphere with wings before. He remained hidden under his blankets while the sphere reached the edge of a cliff. The goblin chief continued to throw arrows while shouting something incomprehensible; even to write it down, the sphere knocked the rock off the cliff, and then fell at an unimaginable speed.

  Riuluk thought: “I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die!” under his blankets.

  At the speed of the cliff, the wings suddenly moved the sphere in a different way; instead of falling, they redirected it horizontally, sending it crashing into the river.

  “Splasshhh,” that was the sound of it. Riuluk was thrown up and down in the air so fiercely that he couldn't stop a burp while being lifted up.

  He stood up again, in what remained of a creaky, but at least the water wasn't coming inside.

  “Yeeeeee, look at you, you greeny boogers!” said Riuluk rudely while showing them a hand gesture considered rude between his kind.

  The goblins remained on the cliff, probably saying even worse than him.

  Riuluk was laughing like the stupidest creature, but what was the point of bothering him since he just got his life saved?